"Gå ikkje rolig" / ("Do not go gentle into that good night")
Some poems are capable to hit you with a tremendous power. This poem by Dylan Thomas is one of those I read it in school learning it was famous, brilliant, of high literary value. But I was not struck by the wild power in it until I read it again recently.
Dylan Thomes wrote this poem "Do not go gentle into that good night" on his father´s deathbed during 1951. Two years later he himself met death, only 39 years of age. He had a short life and he lived hard. And he writes about facing death in a way I never read before. He desperately attacks the idea of being able to reconcile ourselves to dying. How can it be possible, with all our unredeemed, unsettled, unfullfilled lives? The whole poem is a rebellious revolt, kept in a super tight form and rythm which amplifies the content of despair and rage.